Saints post game thread

[Maelstrom88]

Turnovers killed us. Offensive line is going to hold them back from a super bowl imo. Next three division games are crucial.

[Purple Domination]

The good: I felt we were the better team up until the fumble. And very well could have been the better team throughout the game.

The bad: After the fumble, we played totally uninspired football. The rest of the game felt like a bad dream.

The ugly: This is not the first time we’ve done that this season. And not even the first time we’ve done that at home! If there’s a silver lining, it’s that home field throughout the playoffs shouldn’t matter much.

Random thoughts:
- I would have liked to see us try to put some points on the board with 30 seconds left and two timeouts in the first half. Their corners couldn’t cover us and points there would have recaptured a bit of momentum and distanced us from that play before an extended break.

- I am okay going for it on 4th and 1 from our 40, but why throw a 15 yard pass to Treadwell from an empty backfield? Can we go with a higher percentage play than that?

- defense played pretty well tonight outside of the first drive and when the Saints had a short field. Props to Hill. Where was Iloka?

- Why were we huddling inside the 5 with 5:00 to play?

- Bailey missed the XP that will likely go untalked about. Still makes me nervous for the rest of the season.

- Murray is one of my under the radar favorites on this team. Glad we brought him back and I love his low key but positive attitude.

- Props to Adam for tying Calvin Johnson with 8 straight 100 yard games!

- As a fan, I am recalibrating my ambitions to trying to win the north and get hot in the playoffs. It starts next week!

[Bowhunting Viking]

Turnovers, some penalties, and let's not forget we have several key players inactive due to injuries right now, and we have an O line in shambles. I just hope we get this straightened out, get our key players healthy and limit the stupid mistakes.
I dont care how good a team is, sometimes there is a game that just sucks. How often to u see Thielen make a mistake line that? It wasn't our night. We blew it. But I would rather do it now, mid season, and hopefully fix it and get strong down the stretch.
Also I wish Zim would get more aggressive. We had 30 some secs at end of 1st half and a time out I believe. Damit.. after it yrs Minn Miracle, it shows u only need a few secs to do something special. Man get aggressive and at least try and get a chance at 3 pts, or maybe even a TD. You have arguably the best WR tandem in the NFL. Dont kneel and give up.. go for the jugular!!!
That's just my opinion. Try and change that momentum shift going into the locker room at halftime. I don't know, guess i am just so desperate for a Lombardi trophy I just think don't screw around.. GO FOR IT.

[Bowhunting Viking]

The good: I felt we were the better team up until the fumble. And very well could have been the better team throughout the game.

The bad: After the fumble, we played totally uninspired football. The rest of the game felt like a bad dream.

The ugly: This is not the first time we’ve done that this season. And not even the first time we’ve done that at home! If there’s a silver lining, it’s that home field throughout the playoffs shouldn’t matter much.

Random thoughts:
- I would have liked to see us try to put some points on the board with 30 seconds left and two timeouts in the first half. Their corners couldn’t cover us and points there would have recaptured a bit of momentum and distanced us from that play before an extended break.

- I am okay going for it on 4th and 1 from our 40, but why throw a 15 yard pass to Treadwell from an empty backfield? Can we go with a higher percentage play than that?

- defense played pretty well tonight outside of the first drive and when the Saints had a short field. Props to Hill. Where was Iloka?

- Why were we huddling inside the 5 with 5:00 to play?

- Bailey missed the XP that will likely go untalked about. Still makes me nervous for the rest of the season.

- Murray is one of my under the radar favorites on this team. Glad we brought him back and I love his low key but positive attitude.

- Props to Adam for tying Calvin Johnson with 8 straight 100 yard games!

- As a fan, I am recalibrating my ambitions to trying to win the north and get hot in the playoffs. It starts next week!

U feel like I just posted. Go for it at the end of 1st half. Do it!

[ERIK the PURPLE]

This game and this season reminds me a lot of 1972. We acquired Tarkenton during the offseason and the talk was "We should put up 20 points minimum every game and with this defense, we might not lose a game," The Vikes went 7-7 with a lot of flukey losses, missed kicks, miracle comebacks by opponents, etc. Following year we go 12-2, beat Dallas for NFC in Dallas and go to the Super Bowl. Bottom line: 1972 wasn't our year. This year feels that way. Key injuries, Cook can't get on the field, missed kicks, unfulfilled expectations.

[halfgiz]

We put up good numbers, even 3rd down conversions we were 50%.
Turnovers just killed us. Alot of other stuff mentioned above...
The Bad:
3rd down conversions Diggs was 4/4 and AT was 5/5 and you go to Treadwell with no back in the backfield for a miss to end a drive on 4th down...puzzling.
I would like to see someone take his #3 reciever spot.
He made a TD saving tackle but the throwing of the helmet penalty was just stupid.

Missed extra point just has me shaking my head.

And I have come to the conclusion that we have no hurry up offense.

The bottom line is right now we are playing to inconsistent on both sides of the ball. Hopefully we can get more consistent in our drive to make the playoffs...we got the talent.

[PurpleMustReign]

What message does it give the team when you basically kneel in the ball at the end of the first half? Thielen just fumbled and I guarantee he was pissed, throw him the damn ball. I hate this conservative ####. Look at the teams that win a super bowl. They are aggressive. They don't chicken out. I guarantee that affected the offense and the attitude of the team and game.
The play call on the 4th down was laughable. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Cousins could have done a QB sneak from that formation and probably would have gained 5 yards.
This is why I think Mike Zimmer is not the answer. He doesn't have that killer instinct. He doesn't know how to put temas away and go for the jugular.

[purplehaze]

What message does it give the team when you basically kneel in the ball at the end of the first half? Thielen just fumbled and I guarantee he was pissed, throw him the damn ball. I hate this conservative ####. Look at the teams that win a super bowl. They are aggressive. They don't chicken out. I guarantee that affected the offense and the attitude of the team and game.

Agree a thousand percent. Like I said in chat GUARANTEE the Pats and Pukers would try to get some points. Especially with 2 fricken time outs left.

[purplehaze]

What message does it give the team when you basically kneel in the ball at the end of the first half? Thielen just fumbled and I guarantee he was pissed, throw him the damn ball. I hate this conservative ####. Look at the teams that win a super bowl. They are aggressive. They don't chicken out. I guarantee that affected the offense and the attitude of the team and game.

Agree a thousand percent. Like I said in chat GUARANTEE the Pats and Pukers would try to get some points. Especially with 2 fricken time outs left.

Just listened to Zimmers post game press conference. One of the 1st questions that came up was the 30 seconds left with 2 times outs kneel. He defended it big time and got really defensive. Its like WTF??? Where is the confidence in your offense? You just said in your introduction they could not stop us offensively. WTF again.

[Bowhunting Viking]

Well after waking up, actually didnt sleep very much, I'm still thinking about this team and trying to remain positive and still hope for the best. BUT.. there are still some things gnawing at my gut, and some are things that others are alluding to here.
Of course the turnovers were killers, always are. The Theilen fumble was so out if character and on the pick 6 Diggs did stop on the route so that was a miscommunication. Nonetheless they were back breakers.
And again, injuries are really killing us now, and our O line just isn't great, but they did do some decent run blocking in my opinion for the most part. Elf did some amazing pulling and blocking downfield last night.
Now the bad that's driving me nuts.
Penalties!!! So sick of some great O plays being called back for stupid holding penalties. Remmers is bad about it. I was mad at the Holding call on Elf, and then the next few drives saw Saints lineman get away with ones that were worse or at least the as bad. And Treadwells helmet throwing was just SO stupid and immature.
Now my biggest complaint. That would be Zim's lack of aggressiveness. It just really befuddles me because of his nature. The way he is, a no nonsense, Screw you, tell it like it is whether u like it or not tough ol' old school guy.. well u would think he would be a step on ur throat and go for it guy. What the hell happened to that guy.
At the end of the 1st half, we lost a fumble that led to a score. We get the ball back on the 25 with a little over 30 secs left and 2 timeouts. We have an accurate QB with an AMAZING WR duo and a pretty good possession TE who is great at catching the ball on the sidelines and getting outta bounds. And most if all Theilen had to be so pissed about his fumble and wanted to make up for it so he was gonna have extra motivation to try and make up for it. Add to it that we were getting the ball after halftime.
So what do we do. Run 1 play up the gut then just trot off the field to the locker room. Just don't get it. Man do ya think GB woulda done that? N.E.? Even the Saints. Hell no they woulda used every sec of the clock and at least tried to get a FG out if it and went in for halftime WITH the momentum going for ya.. not against ya.
Sorry for the rant but I just hate being unagressive shes. We have that kind of talent, and competitive players like Cousins, Theilen, Diggs and Rudy etc.
Com'n Zim.. get aggressive and use what you have and try and set a tone that we are gonna try to beat the other teams a##!!
Just my opinion, and I believe the opinion of some other members here. I'm sure some of of us here agree with being cautious and that's cool.
But for me.. let's start being bullies, get aggressive and try and win these games!! We have the guys to do it.. so.. DO IT PLEASE

[Bowhunting Viking]

Well Purple Haze I see you are in the same camp as me, cuz you musta been writing ur post at the same time I was.
BtW.. per our little back n forth last night.. I did polish off all those Yeti Stouts last night, and dipped into a Troegenator dopple bock to end the sorrow drowning. So I do have a little headache this morning, but the pain of the game hurts worse

[purplehaze]

Well Purple Haze I see you are in the same camp as me, cuz you musta been writing ur post at the same time I was.
BtW.. per our little back n forth last night.. I did polish off all those Yeti Stouts last night, and dipped into a Troegenator dopple bock to end the sorrow drowning. So I do have a little headache this morning, but the pain of the game hurts worse

I hear ya.

[Pondering Her Percy]

Well I’m starting to think I cursed the Vikings this year given I saw two out of their 3 losses live. Being at this game was awesome but what an awful turn of events. The #1 killer as much as I love him was Thielens fumble. We have guaranteed points coming on that drive AND were getting the ball back at half.

If someone said right then, what’s the worst thing that could happen right now, I say that. If we scored on that drive that puts us up 20-10 and getting the ball back at half. Instead, we’re down 17-13 and throw a pick 6 shortly after.

I’m not impressed with the saints at all. And we can beat that team any day of the week. We beat ourselves. Period. Shut down Brees, contained Kamara/Ingram for the most part, contained their WRs with starters of Waynes, Hill and Alexander. The #1 run defense in the nfl didn’t impress me. Murray played fairly well against them. Overall, not an impressive team IMO. They caught some lucky breaks due to stupid mistakes.

I will say, this D has turned it around. Holding Brees to 120 passing yards with your #1 CB out is more than impressive.

We dominated that team in many categories but lost one main one, turnovers. Just a crappy way to lose. Especially to that team.

[TSonn]

If we get to play the Saints again and are anywhere close to healthy, we beat them. Even in NO. Unfortunately, I'm not so sure we get to play them again with the way we've been shooting ourselves in the foot.

Playing for home field in the playoffs is basically gone now, we need to aim for the division which we can still control.

[Cliff]

The turnovers really hurt and they came out flat after that. Not going for it before the half at least for an FG try was disappointing. It would have been nice to have Rhodes in but I'm not sure it would have turned out much better, honestly.

Cousins doesn't appear to be very good at hurrying things up.

My buddy pointed out his "tell" also. I think the way he smacks the ball before he throws it is honestly contributing to him having so many batted down passes. It's crazy to watch but it seems like it makes it a ton easier for linemen to bat down his passes.